Mayor responds to new Council member’s chiding

Monday

Dec 10, 2012 at 10:22 AM

As Oak Ridge City Council members come together tonight to elect a new mayor, there may well be some additional tension in the air following a letter emailed to area media regarding Mayor Tom Beehan’s candidacy.

by Darrell Richardson/Staff

As Oak Ridge City Council members come together tonight to elect a new mayor, there may well be some additional tension in the air following a letter emailed to area media regarding Mayor Tom Beehan’s candidacy.

“Both before and after the election, thousands of you shared your thoughts with me about the upcoming vote for our next mayor,” newly elected Council member Trina Baughn wrote. “And while preferences varied, there was one unifying thought about who should NOT be elected as mayor.”

Baughn continued: “Many of you shared your concern that Tom Beehan’s power far exceeds that which is allowed by charter. Rather than appoint various Council members to serve on over a dozen different political and economic associations, he keeps these roles (and his activities with them) primarily to himself. Among others, Mr. Beehan chairs the Energy Communities Alliance (a Department of Energy consortium headquartered in Washington, D.C.) as well as the controversial PlanET. He is also on the board of directors of the Transportation Planning Organization for the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. Many of these organizations are recipients of Oak Ridge property tax dollars and some are thought to have competing interests with the needs of our citizenry.

“Citizens and business owners alike are also disappointed in Mr. Beehan’s handling of what will likely be the most expensive non-DOE project in our history. The EPA water/sewer mandates are only just beginning to take their toll in the form of large rate increases. There is no projected final cost as of yet, but despite his extensive connections in Washington and with DOE, Mr. Beehan has done nothing to advocate for the citizens of Oak Ridge on this problem. Rather, he has voted each time to approve the issuance of multi-million dollar bonds without any consideration for his constituency’s ability to pay for them.”Baughn lost to Chuck Hope earlier this year during a special Oak Ridge City Council race featuring only those two candidates, but was then one of three winners in a five-person race that wrapped up on Nov. 6, Election Day. Hope and fellow incumbent Charlie Hensley were the other two victors in that race.

Following the tabulation of ballots on Election Night, Baughn said she was looking forward to working with her other Council members. But, be that as it may, the Council’s newest member had additional negative remarks for Mayor Beehan regarding what Baughn refers to as his “role” in the Oak Ridge school board’s “high school mortgage fiasco” and his employment with a local Real Estate firm that has helped put together a $30 million Kroger Marketplace retail initiative generally considered an economic home run for The Secret City.

Regarding the high school mortgage, Baughn says Beehan “obfuscated the expressed will of the people in his actions with the Board of Education” and “publicly encouraged backroom meetings to develop resolutions that he claimed would ‘uphold the terms of the referendum.’ However, when said resolutions were made public, they did no such thing, which Council recognized and soundly rejected. Mr. Beehan’s ability to remain objective would seem to be further compromised in that he works directly with the most outspoken member of the BOE on the matter, Ms. Angi Agle, in their joint employment at Betsy Coleman Realty.”

Baughn further stated that “countless individuals” have expressed “outrage” that Mayor Beehan works for the firm “that has made up to $1 million from the Kroger project.”

“Even if he did not directly profit from the deal, Mr. Beehan’s role as a Realtor has long been perceived as a conflict of interest and there is no way that he did not benefit in some way,” Baughn opined. (It should be pointed out that The Oak Ridger has reported Mayor Beehan has recused himself numerous times from discussion and the voting process relative to the Kroger Marketplace deal in order to avoid a perceived conflict of interest.)

In conclusion, Baughn writes that her political campaign “put a spotlight on our financial decline over the last decade. The buck stops with Council and Tom Beehan has led Council for that entire period as either vice mayor or mayor. In those roles and with his vote, he personally approved each and every budget, tax increase, bond issuance and rate hike every single year. The end result is a 33 percent increase in expenditures (from $135M to $179M) and a 79 percent increase in total debt (from $104M to $186M).

“An overwhelming percentage of Oak Ridgers have lost all confidence in Tom Beehan’s leadership abilities,” Baughn stated. “They elected me to be their voice and with this letter I am keeping the only campaign promise that I specifically made: I will not cast my vote for Tom Beehan as mayor. Furthermore, I am publicly calling on him to withdraw his request of Council to reappoint him as mayor and I ask that he give serious consideration to resigning from Council all together.”

When The Oak Ridger spoke with Beehan about Baughn’s letter, he said the emailed missive initially took him by surprise.

“I had congratulated Trina when she won in November and told her I would like to have coffee with her and talk,” the Oak Ridge mayor said.

Regarding direct accusations, Beehan said the letter Baughn wrote has inaccuracies in it and he generally perceives the letter as a “pants on fire” attack.

That being said, Beehan said his initial post-election invitation to have coffee with Baughn and discuss the future of Oak Ridge still stands.

“I would love to do that,” he told The Oak Ridger.

Council is expected to elect a mayor and mayor pro tem tonight (Dec. 10) during its 7 p.m. meeting in the Municipal Building courtroom. The public is invited and welcome to attend.